View full sizeJamie Francis/The OregonianTeacher Dan Semrad explains a physics lesson to Damon Rutherford at the Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences, which is located in Oregon City High School. The district-initiated charter school took advantage of about half a million dollars in federal funding to open the school in 2010.

SANDY -- When a fledgling charter school took over the Cottrell Elementary building this fall, district administrators didn't worry about losing per-pupil state funding, and there were no protests decrying the move as a threat to public education.

Amid increasing budget constraints and continued pressure to reform public education, some savvy educators are taking advantage of federal charter school grants of up to $500,000 to create a hybrid: the district-initiated charter school.

In Oregon, taxpayers finance charter schools, which are typically run by organizations independent from school districts. But two Clackamas County districts have discovered the Oregon charter school law can provide extra funds and flexibility for their own innovative programs.

"Budgets are tight right now," Debbie Johnson, the Oregon Trail School District's director of teaching and learning, said shortly before the district's charter school opened in its first location in 2010. "This gives us a revenue source where we can make and create those innovative school options for our families."

In Oregon, there are currently 115 charter schools, representing almost 9 percent of the state's public schools, according to the Oregon Department of Education. The state's charter school law, created in 1999, says a charter school must garner approval from a school board, the state, or soon, a college, before opening its doors.

Recently, others looked to the grants to finance brand new programs. In Oregon City, the Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences received about $505,000 total to help get through its planning and first year. And though Oregon lost out on the federal funds for this school year, The Oregon Trail Primary Academy in 2010 received half of its grant, $280,000, to offer elementary Mandarin language classes and International Baccalaureate curriculum. Oregon Department of Education officials hope to apply for the money again this year.

Advocates for the hybrid charters say districts offer management experience, which helps avoid the logistics that trip up some newcomers. For example, despite more than a year of preparation, leaders of Portland's REAL Prep Charter Academy failed to have a complete curriculum and classrooms ready just days before the school year's opening, leading Portland schools officials to pull its funding.

Districts that back charter schools are also "more invested" in their success, said Johnson, of the Oregon Trail School District.

But others think charter schools should be more independent.

Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, said Oregon's charter school law, which still strongly relies on school boards approving charters, favors tradition over experimentation. "Without strong, independent authorizers as part of the portfolio, you tend to only see districts approving charter schools simply to look and sound reform-minded, and not doing very much in terms of creating real choices," she said.

Todd Zeibarth, a vice president at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, worries that districts may be using the grants simply to start programs instead of truly autonomous schools. For district-initiated charter schools, he asks, what's "charter" about them besides the name? "On the one hand, it's good that school districts can see charters as one tool to improve education," he said. "But I think there is some concern about district-initiated charters just in terms of, 'How independent are these schools that they're creating?'"

When the Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences charter school opened in 2010 within two Oregon City High School classrooms, it was hard to discern where the main high school ended and the charter began. "I felt like it was an extension of the high school because it was still inside the high school itself," said sophomore Nicholas Bronson, 15, who attended the charter for one year before transferring to Oregon City High.

Though the Academy operated its own independent board per Oregon law, it still borrowed unionized teachers from the high school. Students took some Oregon City High classes, ate lunch within the main cafeteria, and listened to the high school's morning announcements.

Principal Ginger Redlinger, the Oregon City administrator who was tapped to start the school, admitted the hybrid model presented some creative challenges. "It was hard for teachers to spend part of their day trying to be a traditional teacher, and then the other half of the day to be completely innovative," she said.

But the 71-student school, which gives five percent of its funding to the district for administrative costs, is pushing for more autonomy this year, Redlinger said. Three out of her four unionized teachers now work exclusively for the Academy, and she expects to relocate soon to Clackamas Community College, which already has classrooms dedicated to the charter school.

She also says the "charter" label is beside the point for most families, who are focused on smaller classes and the programming. "I didn't really know that much about charter schools," said Bronson's mother, Kathy. "But he was thinking about engineering, and I liked the idea that it looked like a small school mixed with a large school."

Redlinger, a longtime public school employee, says she's leery of thinking of charter schools as a panacea for shortcomings in public education. But she, like other administrators embracing district-initiated charters, says the concept should be used if it means serving a need within the district.

"If that niche is there and there's enough community support for it," Redlinger said, "it's a win-win if it's done right."